The academic fix was in and was an integral part of the scheme to plunder the school's assets. Had the academics been problematic, parents would have demanded more accountability from Tassone and Gluckin ---chief among the 26-or so individuals who stole the school blind.
Clearly, lulling parents into believing all was A-OK so that the con game could continue included presenting what appeared to be high academic achivements, impressive SAT's, and getting kids into Ivy League schools.
Parent must demand to know how and when the SAT's were fixed, how scores were manipulated and if computer crimes were employed to alter test scores.
The depths of the Roslyn crime spree may have uncovered massive theft, but parents are in for sticker shock when they find the con game included faked test scores and inflated academic achievements, all paid for with their taxes.
Formula for Fleecing a School District? Spreading Cash Around, Audit Says
By MICHELLE O'DONNELL Published: March 3, 2005 New York Times
The formula for stealing $11.2 million from the Roslyn school district was simple: by compromising the district's accounting controls and giving bonuses to almost everyone who had oversight of the spending, two top officials were able to quietly embezzle the funds over eight years without triggering any alarms, according to a searing audit.
The audit of the district was released yesterday by State Comptroller Alan G. Hevesi. According to it, the scheme involved the former superintendent, Frank A. Tassone; the former business manager, Pamela Gluckin; and an accounting clerk, Debra Rigano, who is a niece of Ms. Gluckin. They have all been accused of grand larceny. Other employees who received the largess, which included unauthorized extra pay, might have been innocent recipients, Mr. Hevesi cautioned, but the criminal investigation is continuing.
More than half the money was embezzled in a scheme in which Dr. Tassone and Ms. Gluckin and nine of their family members and friends charged $5.9 million for personal items and cash advances on 74 personal credit cards, investigators said. Then Ms. Gluckin, who resigned in 2002, and Dr. Tassone, who resigned last June, used district checks to pay those bills, Mr. Hevesi said.
The audit found that Dr. Tassone and Ms. Gluckin would obtain cash advances on their credit cards at A.T.M.'s. Ms. Gluckin, whose salary and benefits in her final year were $87,250, charged $559,176 in cash advances to the district over six years. Dr. Tassone, who received a salary of $230,000, charged $541,596 to the district in cash advances.
Once the cash advances and the credit card charges - among them, for Tiffany and Tourneau jewelry, Coach leather acessories, carpet and furniture for him; and clothes from Nordstrom and Sears, electronic equipment, pet supplies and art and furniture for her - were executed, those amounts were submitted to the district, the audit said.
To pay those bills, district checks were sent directly to the card issuers. The audit found that the district's financial software could be easily manipulated and had fraud controls that had never been activated. Using a legitimate vendor account number, the name of the check's recipient would be changed from a vendor of school supplies to the creditors. After the check was issued, the name of the payee would be changed back in the computer records to the legitimate vendor to conceal the fraudulent payment, according to the audit.
For example, personal American Express payments totaling $1.49 million were paid under the vendor number of Sargent-Welch, the company that provided the district with laboratory supplies. Payments to Citibank totaling $896,730 were made under the vendor number of the Nassau County Board of Cooperative Educational Services, which provides special education programs.
Mr. Hevesi said that vulnerabilities in the district's financial software, Finance Manager, which is in use in 251 school districts in the state, allowed the officials to disguise their thefts as legitimate spending.
In a separate audit last month, he faulted the district's outside accounting firm, Miller, Lilly & Pearce, for "appallingly inadequate" audits.
When a budget category came close to its limit, the audit said, school officials were able to shift funds among accounts. Dr. Tassone had been granted unlimited authority by the school board to make those transfers even though state education regulations required the board to set limits on the amounts that can be transferred without board approval, according to the audit.
No check warrants - lists of payments awaiting approval by the district's internal claims auditor - were maintained. In fact, the audit found, the claims were barely reviewed by that auditor. The extent of the review by the internal auditor, an acquaintance of Dr. Tassone who received $6,200 in unexplained payments from the district, consisted of thumbing through and initialing the vouchers, the audit said.
The district's treasurer, who is the custodian of all district funds, rarely attended board meetings and infrequently reported on the budget, the audit said. Although state law requires that a district's checks are to be signed by the treasurer, in Roslyn, the checks were signed by Dr. Tassone's secretary.
Dr. Tassone and Ms. Gluckin consolidated their control over the district's finances by installing clerks responsible for monitoring both accounts payable and accounts receivable. Standard accounting practice is to separate those duties to prevent fraud, according to the audit.
http://www.nytimes.com/2005/03/03/nyregion/03audit.html
Where did it say the SAT scores were fixed?
Are the MA libs moving down to NY or vice versus? LOL
Just do a google news search.
"It doesn't say in the contract whether he can take the Concorde or swim across the Atlantic."
Tassone would have fit right in at the United Way or as head of the International Olympic Committee.
School shenanigans ping (NooYawk style).
Looks like it’s the popular thing to do. And it must be easy to steal education money. That tells me there is too much of it floating around out there that nobody has a clue what its for.
http://www.heartland.org/Article.cfm?artId=15595 - Corruption in Public Schools Costs Taxpayers, Impedes Reform.
Author: Lisa Snell
Published: The Heartland Institute 09/01/2004
Ongoing news reports from across the country indicate incidents of corruption and mismanagement in the public schools occur frequently, often on a massive scale. Ignoring the scale of the problem not only costs taxpayers millions of dollars but also hinders school reform efforts, according to New York University law professor Lydia G. Segal.
In her recent book, Battling Corruption in America's Public Schools (Northwestern University Press, 2003), Segal argues, "one impediment to reform that no one is seriously studying in the debate over how to improve public schools is systematic fraud, waste, and abuse." Her careful documentation of the pervasive corruption and waste in the nation's three largest school districts--New York City, Chicago, and Los Angeles--leaves little doubt the problem merits serious study.
However, fraud, waste, and abuse are not limited to large urban school districts, as the following recent examples demonstrate.
$8 Million in Undocumented Expenses - In New York's affluent Roslyn School District on Long Island ………. [what’s in NY Times].
$15.9 Million in Kickbacks - In Fort Worth, Texas, a school construction scandal ended in June with the former executive director of maintenance for the Fort Worth School District, Tommy Ingram, and contractor Ray Brooks being sentenced to eight years in prison each for a kickback scheme in which they defrauded the school district of an estimated $15.9 million.
Mismanagement - …… California's Oakland Unified School District, state auditors could not determine if … the district had appropriately spent millions of dollars and properly complied with scores of state and federal mandates. …. the district could be forced to repay $163 million …….. district bonds worth $322 million are in jeopardy of losing their tax-exempt status because the funds have been inappropriately spent …….
According to the audit's findings, the district's shortcomings included: Failing to hold competitive bidding for $18.4 million in contracts; inappropriately using $650,000 in bond funds to pay a lawsuit settlement; Issuing payroll checks to employees when they no longer worked for the district; Failing to maintain attendance records at some schools and over reporting attendance at others; Inappropriately carrying over unused funds for federal projects from one year to the next.
…… in south Florida, auditors delivered 650 pages of backup documents ……. that charged the Miami-Dade school district with wasting more than $100 million …….. audit alleged there was massive disorganization and waste in the program as well as "probable malfeasance, misfeasance, and potential for fraud."
Payroll Scam - …… eight employees of the New Orleans school system pleaded guilty to stealing more than $70,000 in a scheme in which payroll clerk Louis Serrano wrote fraudulent checks ……… A ninth employee ….. admitted stealing $250,000 by printing checks to herself using her maiden name. ……. According to a recent report …… school system employees have cashed an estimated $3 million in paychecks that administrators sent out either in error or with criminal intent.
More in New Orleans - FEDERAL GRAND JURY INDICTS ELEVEN IN ORLEANS PARISH SCHOOLS CORRUPTION INVESTIGATION – DEC 2004
http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oig/invtreports/la122004.html
In the first indictment , GLENN DAVIS, age 51, of New Orleans, Louisiana and CHARLES "CHUCK" SWANSON, age 59, were charged in a two count indictment with violating the Hobbs Act for kick backs ……….. in order to retain highly lucrative health insurance contracts for insurance companies they represented.
In the second indictment returned by the Grand Jury, two teachers and two clerical employees ……. were charged with a Hobbs Act Conspiracy and extortion scheme. ….
The third indictment alleges that three individuals, JUAWANNE SCOTT, age 32, of New Orleans, SHERRY WILKERSON, age 47, of New Orleans, and ANGELA WILLIAMS, age 38 of New Orleans conspired to commit bank larceny in their positions at the Orleans Public School Federal Credit Union.
In the fourth indictment the Grand Jury indicted DEBBIE WILLIAMS, age 42, of New Orleans and LOLETA WRIGHT, age 39, of New Orleans for conspiring to possess forged checks and for illegally passing the forged checks. DEBBIE WILLIAMS was employed as a secretary at McMain Secondary School located on Claiborne Avenue and LOLETA WRIGHT was an assistant secretary at McMain. The Grand Jury alleged that WRIGHT and WILLIAMS, in their capacity as clerical workers at the school, would pick up the paychecks from a check depository in uptown New Orleans.
Atlanta – Federal Grand Jury Returns Superseding Indictment Against Former School Superintendent Schrenko – FEB 2005
http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oig/invtreports/gan022005.html
……. to fraudulently obtain over a half million dollars of federal funds administered by the Georgia Department of Education. The indictment alleges that SCHRENKO personally ordered the Georgia Department of Education to issue multiple checks in amounts just under $50,000, totaling over $500,000, to various companies owned and controlled by BOTES and STEYN purportedly to provide computer licenses and services to the Atlanta Area School for the Deaf, the Georgia School for the Deaf, and the Governor's Honors Program. The indictment further alleges that BOTES directed a subordinate employee to funnel a total of approximately $250,000 of the funds obtained from the Georgia Department of Education directly and indirectly to SCHRENKO and others for the benefit of SCHRENKO's gubernatorial campaign through a series of cash payments, wire transfers through a foreign bank account, and other disguised financial transactions.
Silver Spring, MD - Man Sentenced to 175 Months in Prison in Connection with Scheme to Steal Approximately $900,000 Dollars in Grant Money Intended for a Public School District in South Dakota – AUG 2004
http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oig/invtreports/dc082004.html
According to the facts presented at the trial and plea hearing, Holmes and Francois conspired to receive stolen government funds under DOE's Impact Aid program which were intended by DOE to aid school districts whose tax base was depleted by the presence of non-taxable sources such as military bases or Indian reservations. In March 2000, Holmes and Francois caused the stolen government funds to be deposited into the business banking account of Dany Enterprises, which was owned by Dorcely.
My question – did South Dakota ever miss the money they were supposed to get?
Here is a list of all US Dept of Ed IG Investigative Reports, indictments and convictions for the last few years. Sounds like people think it’s easy to steal from the Dept of Education. Maybe it is and these are only the ones that got caught.
http://www.ed.gov/about/offices/list/oig/ireports.html
This kind of thing just infuriates me. Grrrr.
As far as I can tell, the only people who've lost their jobs are the perps. The people who were supposed to prevent such theft will all be portrayed as victims.
And what, pray tell, is Hevesi's job??? He's the COMPTROLLER of the state. He's doing the audits NOW?! Where was he when all this was going on.
How did HE allow the state to create a system where:
--cardholders can get cash advances
--software could be manipulated to hide payment recipients (and obviously no independent person was reconciling bank stmts)
--they were allowed to hire an auditor who was obviously compromised.
--budget categories could be transferred without state detection
--no one noticed that the treasurer wasn't attending meetings or signing checks as required
--payrolls were being manipulated to overpay salaries and bonuses and THEN the inflated amounts were inflated AGAIN to report a higher base for pension calculations.
And this is my favorite line in the first article:
"Since the Roslyn debacle, the comptroller has given seminars to school officials around the state and has also asked for $5 million to resume REGULAR SCHOOL AUDITS, WHICH ENDED TWO DECADES AGO IN A BUDGET CUT".
WHO were the idiots who thought eliminating the AUDITORS was a good idea? I'd like to see the names. WHy wasn't Hevesi screaming from the rooftops?
Heads should be rolling all the way up the chain. I predict New Yorkers will just let this one die out like all the other horrors we hear about (custodians). No one in the private sector would survive this happening on their watch...whether they stole anything or not. And if the people of a state want to put up with this, fine...just take my federal dollars out of the mix. Let them throw away their own money.
What in God's name was the school board doing over the entire theft process? The should also be brought up on charges.
Frank Tassone was my English teacher in high school in 1979. A very mild-mannered person, about as unlikely a guy to be involved with something like this as possible. My old buddies and I are still scratching our heads over the unlikeliness of it all. The worst we ever said about him was that he was "light in the loafers", if you get my drift.
Goes to show you how unions, bureaucratic privelege and lack of oversight can tranform even a milquetoast English teacher into a crime boss.
Oh gee, the Times left out the gay angle. I remember when this story first came to light one of the recipients of Tassone's largesse (really, the largesse of the duped taxpayers of Roslyn) was his live-in companion, a man who ran a word-processing business out of their shared apartment.
Are the superintendants of this District supposed to absorb great insight from foreign socialist countries in order to better perform their jobs in Long Island? If so, it didn't work too well with this guy, did it?
Or maybe it did.
Apparantly, free foreign travel now comes along with being a minor (in the great scheme of things) high school bureaucrat. This is almost as good a sinecure as being a minor functionary with the UN.
Some of the Supreme Court justices are now dipping their toes into international waters to apply foreign (socialist) law to our judicial system in contravention to our Constitution.
That's all we need now, folks, is the leftist scholastic systems of socialist countries imported into our high schools by globe-trotting high screwl supers.
Chain these bozos to their desks in our own country and make them push their pencils till they figure out a way to run their districts without bankrupting their taxpayers.
Leni
Most pervasive known school fraud.
This example is of one of the flaws in having a democratic form of gov't. If such things happen in sub-Sarahan Africa nobody is surprised. We need to wake up and be aware of this while we are busy state-building other places.
Most of the federal dollars go for upper mangement anyway..
When federal school dollars go to mostly democrat upper management nationally expecting HONESTY both on the federal level but MORE in the States on the use of those funds is...
SILLY (expecting honesty that is).......
Schools are and have been a democrat cash cow.. FOR DECADES...
Open up THIS Pandoras Box of corruption and it will effect everything from pBS to tenure in acedemia to kindergarten.. even to the building of the schools and the school bus system.. I don't think the New York Slimes has that in mind at all with this article.. A national audit of ALL schools is NOT going to HAPPEN (I mean a REAL audit)...
WHY?... (Eddie Murphy laugh)...
BTW: Places like Roslyn and Great Neck only have high test scores and graduation rates due to the fact that the parents in those communities push their kids to succeed. It has little to do with the teachers or corrupt administrators.